Multiplayer chess apparatus and method of play

ABSTRACT

A multiplayer chess apparatus and method of play is disclosed. The apparatus consists of 108 hexagon-shaped tiles and 54 tokens. The tiles are arranged to create a field of play with the shape of a 6-tile by 7-tile hexagon. The tokens are placed on the tiles in three sets, one for each of three players. The tokens represent standard chess pieces on one side, and the reverse sides represent variant chess pieces. During play, according to the method of play, tokens can be moved, stacked, unstacked, or removed from play. Tiles can also be removed from play. The shape of the field of play, the use of tokens for chess pieces, and the method of play facilitate resolution of the petty diplomacy problem in chess. The apparatus can be adapted for use by more than three players.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of provisional patent applicationNo. 60/545,630 filed Feb. 18, 2004

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to multiplayer chess games. The invention isparticularly related to all chess games that use hexagonal spaces in thegame board, to all chess games with boards having other than four sides,and to all chess games that rely on physical characteristics of thechess pieces to facilitate play. The invention is also related tomultiplayer chess games that introduce new methods of play in order toduplicate, in a multiplayer environment, the challenge of standardchess. Finally, the invention is related to all chess games thatintroduce new methods of piece movement.

The purpose of our invention is to resolve the Petty Diplomacy problemin multiplayer chess.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION WITH RESPECT TO THE PRIOR ART

Chess games with hexagonal boards or with truncated triangular boardsare known in the prior art. Chess games using flat, stackable pieces arealso known in the prior art. Chess games with a board with spaces thatare taken out of play during the course of the game are also known inthe prior art. Further, there are several multiplayer chess games knownin the prior art that attempt to solve the petty diplomacy problem.However, there are no prior art chess games that combine alone all threeof the above elements. Our invention is an improvement over prior artattempts to solve the petty diplomacy problem because, by relying onphysical characteristics of the game apparatus, we are able to implementa method of play that better adheres to the spirit of two player chess.

Prior art ideas for chess game construction can be found on theChessvariants website's crafts section(http://www.chessvariants.com/crafts.dir/index.html), and include theuse of a combination of tiles and tokens to create chess boards andchess pieces for chess variants. The construction concepts and materials(posterboard tiles and pokerchip pieces) used for the physicalimplementation of our invention were first published by Fergus Duniho onChessvariants.com(http://www.chessvariants.com/crafts.dir/construction-set.html). Furthersuggestions by Tony Quintanilla for use of tiles, along with anapproximation of a 91 hex tile board using square tiles are also on theChessvariants.com website(http://www.chessvariants.com/crafts.dir/ceramic_tiles/construction-set.html),as are examples by David Howe for the use of tokens as pieces(http://www.chessvariants.com/crafts.dir/chessdiscs.html). None of thesecraft ideas are integral to a method of play, and are not specificallyintended to resolve the petty diplomacy problem in multiplayer chess.Stackability of tokens is not referenced as an advantage in any of thedescriptions of these construction kit ideas. Detachability of tiles ismentioned only in the context of flexibility in creating different boardshapes, not as a feature to be taken advantage of during the course ofplay.

This patent is not intended to restrict the right to use or expand uponthe chess game construction ideas published in the crafts section of theChessvariants.com website.

Board and Space Shape and Use

Standard chess boards are eight by eight squares, typically a singleboard with each space drawn on the board or permanently attached to theothers. Our chess board is roughly hexagonal in shape, and is made ofdetachable tiles. This allows tiles to be removed from the board duringthe course of play. Our Rules set out the conditions upon which tilesmay or must be removed from play.

To create the board, the tiles are placed together in a hexagon pattern,with sides alternating between six and seven tiles in width. Hexagonalspaces in a hexagonal board have been used to create variant chess gamesbefore, most notably with the McCooey and Glinski (British Patent616,572) chess variants, which are six tiles to a side. Both aretwo-player games, not multiplayer games as our invention is.

Several chess sets use a hexagonal board or hexagonal spaces to createthe board. Examples of strictly hexagonal boards are U.S. Pat. Nos.3,920,247 (Jenkins), 3,964,747 (Balmforth) and 5,582,410 (Hunt) showinghexagonal boards with seven spaces per side, 6,070,871 (Wilson) witheight spaces per side, and 4,580,787 (Baker) with nine spaces per side.Examples of boards with six sides where the sides alternate in length(truncated triangles) are 3,744,797 (Hopkins) with alternating sides offive and ten spaces, 3,778,065 (Hale) with alternating sides of six andeight spaces, 5,158,302 (Rewega) with alternating sides of four andeight spaces, and 6,170,826 (Jones) with alternating sides of eight andnine spaces.

Our invention has a six-sided board with alternating sides of six andseven spaces.

In all of these examples emphasis is on the shape of the board and thearrangement of the spaces on the board. In no case is the constructionof the board mentioned or relevant to the chess set. In addition to aunique board shape, our invention also has a unique board construction.The novel feature of our invention in this regard is that the spaces aremade of detached tiles that are placed next to each other during setupfor play, but are not permanently attached to each other. Constructingthe board with detachable tiles facilitate rules that allow for theremoval of tiles during play. This makes the board smaller over thecourse of play, which mitigates the Petty Diplomacy problem by reducingthe ability of players to “stay out of the fight”. Our detachable tilescould equally well be any other shape or combination of shapes on aboard of any size or shape.

Atlantis Chess(http://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/atlantis.html), CheshireChess (http://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/cheshir.html), andShrink Chess (http://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/shrink.html)have rules that remove spaces from play.

In the games Vortex and Tile Chess, there is no distinction between aspace and a piece. In these games, there is no board. Instead, tiles(not tokens) are the pieces, and in most cases, can move around theplaying surface. In our invention, tiles act only as spaces, and do notmove (though they may be removed from play). Tokens act as pieces. Thegame Twilight Imperium uses hexagon tiles as spaces and figurines, nottokens, as pieces.

Prior Art Chess Games With Stackable Pieces

Chinese and Japanese chess variants use tokens that are flat torepresent the chess pieces, as does our invention. However, the rules donot allow for pieces to be stacked. Our Rules take advantage of the factthat tokens can be stacked, and use that capability to reduce the impactof the petty diplomacy problem.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,806,125 (Bialek) discloses a chess game with stackablepieces. Unlike the instant invention, Bialek's game board does not usedetachable tiles, has square rather than hexagonal board spaces,necessarily uses only one side of a stackable piece for play, and is notdesigned for multiple players.

The games Reversi and Othello use tokens to represent pieces, and therules allow tokens to be flipped over in order to indicate which playercontrols that token. In our invention, tokens are flipped over in orderto represent the type of piece that it is (its movement ability). FlipChess and Flip Shogi (hup://www.chessvariants.com/38.dir/flip.html), andReality Check (http://www.chessvariants.com/39.dir/realitycheck.html)also use both sides of tokens, to indicate promoted or variant pieces.None of these games take advantage of the stackability of tokens.

In Checkers, tokens represent pieces, and the stackability of tokens isused to represent promotion of a checker to a King. In our invention,tokens are stacked in order to represent captured and capturing pieces.In our invention, unlike checkers, tokens can be unstacked as well.

The game of Laska (http://research.interface.co.uk/lasca/index.htm),invented by chess champion Emmanuel Lasker, uses stackable pieces for avariant of Checkers where captured pieces remain on the board and cansubsequently be liberated by the original owner. Unlike the instantinvention, Laska does not use detachable tiles for the board, has squarerather than hexagonal board spaces, and is not designed for multipleplayers. Unlike Bialek's game, and similarly to the instant invention,it does use both sides of the stackable pieces.

Pillar Chess (http://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/pillar.html)is an adaptation to chess of Laska Checkers. Pillar Chess uses tokensfor pieces, so that they can be stacked, and the rules for Pillar Chessallow captured pieces to be released. Pillar Chess differs from ourinvention in that it is not a multi-player game, uses squares for spacesinstead of hexagons, the double-sidedness of the tokens is not relevantto game play, and the number of spaces in the board is fixed for theduration of the game.

Rules Addressing Petty Diplomacy

The best description of the petty diplomacy problem is by Peter Aronsonin a comment found on the Chessvariants website in the description ofFergus Duniho's Three Player Hex Shogi 91(http://www.chessvariants.com/hexagonal.dir/hexshogi/3player91.html).The relevant excerpt follows:

“Looking at your interesting articles on Hex Shogi, I was reminded ofsome thoughts I once had on three-player Chess variants and the petitdiplomacy problem. While I'm sure you're aware of it, I'll repeat ithere for the sake of discussion. There are two parts:

(1) In a three-player game, one player can sit out the fighting whilethe other two fight. Then, once the fighting is over, defeat the damagedvictor.

(2) In a three-player game, two players can gang up on the third,eliminate them, and then fight each other to the death.

A review of HEXCHess (based on the Jenkins U.S. Pat. No. 3,920,247) alsomentions the diplomacy problem in three-player chess:

“Chess was a game, designed to play with two players. There have beenseveral designs of chess for three players, but all have a commonproblem: exchanging is in the advantage of the player that is notinvolved in the exchange. Thus, combinations, where a player wins astrong piece against a weak piece of himself, are often notadvantageous.”

All of the prior art attempts at resolving the petty diplomacy problemin multiplayer chess either fail to address both aspects of the problem,or do so with rules that incorporate, rather than eliminate, pettydiplomacy in the method of play.

The most direct acknowledgment of the petty diplomacy problem, and thebest attempt at resolving it, is by Glenn Overby in his description ofOrwell Chess, found on the Chessvariants website athttp://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/contest84/orwellchess.html. Thedescription of his solution follows:

“The petty diplomacy problem was attacked with a combination of rules.Dice limit the ability to move pieces freely to gang up on someone. TheShifting Alliances rule requires would-be allies to beat up on eachother much of the time. And the Perpetual Power rule keeps the victim ofmisfortune around for revenge.”

The Shifting Alliances requires a player to attack each of his opponentsin turn. The rule is successful in hindering both a player staying outof the fight and an alliance of two players against a third, but comesat the cost of directing players to consider attacks on the basis of‘who is next’ rather than ‘where is the threat’. A second problem withthe rule is that it was designed for a three player game, and wouldbecome progressively less practicable as the number of playersincreased. In contrast, our invention's method of play allows players toattack the pieces of any play at any time they see fit.

Derick R. Peterson addresses the Petty Diplomacy problem in the 3-playervariant of his game Grand Hexachess(http://www.chessvariants.com/hexagonal.dir/grandhexachess.html). Hisrules-based solution allows players to move multiple pieces in one turn,and requires that any player not involved in a capture also remove apiece from the board. Our invention requires only that a player notinvolved in a capture move their King to a new hex.

Siege chess (http://www.chessvariants.com/multiplayer.dir/siege.html)has rules allowing a player to invoke a three-turn truce in order tothwart an alliance. During the truce, the targeted player has specialmovement, capture, and other abilities.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The purpose of our invention is to resolve the Petty Diplomacy problemin multiplayer chess, without destroying the fundamental characteristicsof two-player chess.

The chief obstacle to a transfer of two-player chess strategy to amultiplayer chess game is the “Petty Diplomacy” problem. The PettyDiplomacy problem in multiplayer chess has two manifestations:

-   1) Players can make informal alliances to gang up on other players,    and-   2) A player can play less aggressively than the other players,    allowing the other players to weaken themselves while conserving his    own strength.

Our invention resolves the petty diplomacy problem through a new chessboard shape, the novel combination of stackable tokens for pieces anddetachable tiles to form the board, and a method of play that takesadvantage of the physical features of our game apparatus.

Our chess board shape is a six-sided polygon with alternating sides ofsix or seven spaces. There are 108 total hexagonal spaces in the board.

The use of flat, stackable tokens for the chess pieces facilitates amethod of play allowing captured pieces to remain in play and bereturned to control of the original owner under certain conditions.Keeping captured pieces in the game facilitates a method of play thatallows a player to potentially recover from being the target of aninformal alliance, once that alliance shifts its attention and/orcomposition to target a new leading player. This also reduces theadvantage accruing to a player whose strategy is to let the otherplayers fight and lose pieces.

The use of detachable tiles to create the board facilitates a method ofplay that allows tiles to be removed from the board (and so removed fromplay), making the board progressively smaller over the course of thegame. This makes it progressively more difficult for any one player tostay out of the fight.

The unique board shape, and choice and positions of pieces at start ofplay duplicates, for a three player game, the playing environment ofstandard chess. Our invention achieves the intent to preserve the lookand feel of standard chess. Despite being hexagon-based, all pieces moveanalogous to standard chess. The variant piece movements are alsoclosely related to their standard chess counterparts. The ratio ofpieces to board spaces in the three player version is 50% (54 pieces and108 spaces), just as in standard chess (32 pieces and 64 spaces). Byusing three bishops, our invention has one bishop per space-color, justas in standard chess. Further, the variant piece that a Bishop promotesto, the Cardinal, is also colorbound, which is another unique feature ofour invention. Each army has one pawn for each major piece, as instandard chess. The start position of each army is analogous to that ofstandard chess, in that pawns are in front, Rooks are in the corners,and Knights are the only pieces that can move from their start positionwithout a pawn first having been moved.

The physical characteristics of our chess components facilitateresolution of the petty diplomacy problem in several ways. Thedetachable tiles enable rules that allow tiles to be removed from theboard during play, making the board smaller during the course of thegame, thus reducing the ability of any one player to stay out of thefight. Stackable tokens allow captured pieces to remain in play, andenable rules that allow for captured pieces to return to their originalowner, reducing the disadvantage that accrues to players that exchangepieces in a multiplayer game.

Our method of play also addresses the Petty Diplomacy problem. Havingthe center of the board be a destination for promotion of pieces, and agame-winning destination for the King, encourages players to move piecesto the center of the board, as in standard chess. Allowing players tocontinue playing even after losing control of their King assures that noplayer is forced out of the game before the others, which means that thepeople who at the start of the game wanted to play together can do sothroughout the game.

Our invention is not strictly a three player game; it can be played byas many as care to play, including as few as two players. The inventionis “backwards compatible” with standard two-player chess. Differentboard shapes can be created, thanks to the detachable hexagonal tiles.The use of tokens facilitates design, use, and inclusion of othervariant pieces for play. The size of the hex tiles and the size andshape of the tokens can be varied if convenient, depending on what isavailable at the local crafts store.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1: “Tile Dimensions” shows one tile, with the dimensions of ourpreferred implementation.

FIG. 2: “Token Dimensions” shows a token, also with the dimensions ofour preferred implementation.

FIG. 3: “Board in Last Stages of Assembly” demonstrates the detachablenature of the tiles.

FIG. 4: “A Stack of Three Tokens” demonstrates the stackability oftokens.

FIG. 5: “Setup” shows our preferred implementation of a fully assembledboard with pieces in the start positions.

Drawings showing how pieces move on a hex board, including the variantpieces, can be found in the method of play section of this document.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The tiles (FIG. 1) are placed next to each other to form a roughlyhexagonal shaped board whose sides alternate between six and seven tileswide (FIG. 5). The tiles are placed so that no two colors of the sametile are adjacent. To form the board, first place one tile of each ofthe three colors next to each other in a triangle. Then place tilesadjacent to the first three so that a ring is formed around the firstthree. Successively place further tiles in a ring around the previouslyplaced tiles until there are five rings of tiles around the originalthree tiles. This results in a hexagonal board whose sides alternatebetween six and seven tiles wide.

During play, according to the method of play, tiles are taken away fromthe board (FIG. 3). The remainder of the tiles stay as they are, leavinggaps or holes in the board.

During setup, tokens (FIG. 2) representing the chess pieces are placedon the board one token per tile as indicated in FIG. 5. During play,according to the method of play, tokens are moved from one tile toanother. Tokens may be stacked (FIG. 4) and unstacked according to themethod of play, but no more than one stack can occupy a tile at a time.Tokens may be removed from the board according to the method of play.

1) A chess apparatus, configured as shown in FIG. 5, consisting of a) 3sets of 36 detached hexagon shaped tiles, each set of a different color,placed adjacent to each other to form a large six-sided field withalternating sides of six and seven tiles, in a pattern where no tile isadjacent to another tile of the same color. b) Three sets of 18 tokens,arranged on the field described in 1a), each set differing in color.